Builder left with £19,000 bill after rogue iPhone’s surfing spree

Chris Bovis (not pictured) was left with a hefty phone bill after his iPhone malfunctioned (Picture: Alamy)

A builder was left with a £19,000 bill when his rogue iPhone went on its own internet surfing spree.

Chris Bovis’s device was automatically sending and receiving large amounts of data even when it was switched off.

The first the 26-year-old knew of the problem was when phone operator Orange suddenly cut the line.

He was then told he had racked up a bill of £8,900 because of ‘high internet use’ – and warned that he had another tariff of £10,000 to come.

The company then tried to take the full amount from his bank account, only for the transaction to be blocked by insufficient funds.

‘My first reaction was to laugh as I just could not believe it but it stopped being funny when I realised they were not joking and were totally serious,’ said Mr Bovis, of Tilbury, Essex, who was also threatened with bailiffs.

‘My phone bills are normally about £50 and I have never gone over my download limits, so why they did not think something was suspicious simply beggars belief.

‘Thankfully, when Orange tried to take £19,000 from my bank account the money was not in there and I don’t have an overdraft of that amount.’

Restoring the factory settings on the phone had no impact and Apple staff replaced the handset when they could not diagnose the problem.

Orange, which also tried to cap the bill at £300, apologised and said it would cancel the statement once Apple confirmed the fault.